The Big Gotham Villain That Is Probably Returning In Season 4

Fox's Gotham has spent the last three years playing with the best bad guys of Batman lore, tweaking their iconic backstories so that they can vex Detective Jim Gordon years before Bruce Wayne ever dons the cape and the cowl. We've only just reached the finale of Season 3, but we already know one villain who is probably going to be back in Season 4. When asked about Season 4 villains, Gotham star Ben McKenzie had this to say:

There are some villains that I'm a big fan of that are in Season 4. I've always been keen on The Scarecrow. It'd be nice if The Scarecrow showed up.

The Scarecrow - a.k.a. Jonathan Crane - debuted back in Season 1 as the son of a biology teacher/murderer who harvested the adrenal glands of his victims to create a serum that would hypothetically remove all fear from the people who are dosed with it. While the serum worked on Gerald Crane (and ultimately led to his death), an overdose of the serum left young Jonathan permanently terrified of a scarecrow. He was last seen restrained and writhing in fear in a hospital bed. Ben McKenzie's comments to DC Entertainment indicate that Crane is on his way back to Gotham.

A big question is how much Crane has recuperated since we last saw him. He's had a couple of years to recover, but his doctor in Season 1 believed that he was permanently altered by his terror of the scarecrow. If the Gotham version of the character resembles the DC Comics version of the character, we have to expect that he has recovered at least enough to start plotting. If revenge is on his mind, Jim and Harvey will probably need to watch out after their roles in his father's death. If he's more into general murder and mayhem, the entirety of Gotham City could be in big trouble.

Given how Bruce has been getting more and more involved in crime-fighting, it's possible that Season 4 will see the first showdown between Scarecrow and the future Caped Crusader. Whatever happens, we can only hope that it will be appropriately scary. Gerald Crane got all the big scares back in Season 1; now that Gerald is dead, it's up to Jonathan to scare the pants off viewers.